Spiced Soft Baked Molasses Cookies

Why? Because I’m about to bake some mother lovin’ spiced molasses cookies. And then I’m going to eat them until I hate them.

3/4 cup butter flavored shortening

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup molasses

2 and 1/2 c flour

2 tsp baking soda (this is for a flatter, more traditional cookie – And if you like your cookies fluffy – use 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp baking powder)

Heaping 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ginger

Heaping 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Confectioners sugar for dusting after they are cooked and cooled

This is a chilled cookie dough, so don’t preheat your oven, ok?

After you’ve gotten together all the ingredients, its time to grab the kitchen aid(or your equivalent.) In your bowl, add the shortening and brown sugar and combine until mixed well, a nice creamy consistency. Then add in your molasses and egg. Let this mix really well.

In a separate bowl, combine your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and fluff inducing baking powder, if you so wish. Once you’re done with that, carefully mix your dry ingredients into your kitchen aid until its a solid mass of cookie dough.

Throw that bowl into your fridge and let chill for at least a hour, longer if you’re busy with life like pretty much all of us, amiright?

When you’re able to get back to cookie making, preheat your oven to 350 & line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

I use a literal tablespoon to dish out even sized cookies. I like this size personally, but you do you, k? Alton Brown (my hero) keeps different sized ice-cream scoops (he calls them “dishers” on good eats) around for this kind of thing, but I do not have the kitchen space for a dozen more things that I’ll use a couple times a month. Sorry Alton. I still love you.

Throw your cookie pans in the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes. Much longer and you’ll lose that soft baked texture, but they’re still great dunking cookies with your coffee.

After taking them out of the oven, let them cool on the pan for 2 or 3 minutes, and then transfer to baking rakes to cool the rest of the way.

After they are completely cooled, grab that confectioners sugar, a fine mesh sifter and a little scoop- a small amount of sugar goes a long way.

Shake that stuff all over the tops of your cookies, and enjoy the smell.

So, home baked anything never really lasts long in our house. We have active appetites and fairly regular visitors. So to store these cookies I place a piece of bread in the bottom of our cookie jar, and then a piece of paper towel over the bread. Finally. layer the cookies in gently to fit them all.

I made these Saturday, and they were GONE as of last night, the following Wednesday. They were still soft because of the bread.